The present invention relates to data processing by digital computer, and more particularly to using a controlled vocabulary library to generate business data component names.
Companies have conventionally exchanged electronic business information using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). While EDI has allowed companies to communicate more efficiently than through the use of traditional paper-based communications, smaller companies face challenges to participate in electronic business (or electronic collaboration). These companies need to invest in complex and expensive computer systems to be installed at local computers, or to register with marketplaces at remote computers accessible through the Internet. In either case, the companies are bound by the particulars of the local or remote computer systems. Changes lead to further costs for software, hardware, user training, registration, and the like.
More recently, the development of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) has offered an alternative way to define formats for exchanging business data. XML provides a syntax that can be used to enable more open and flexible applications for conducting electronic business transactions, but does not provide standardized semantics for messages used in business processes. Initiatives to define standardized frameworks for using XML to exchange electronic business data have produced specifications such as the Electronic Business Extensible Markup Language (UN/CEFACT/ebXML) Core Components Technical Specification (CCTS) and ISO 11179. The UN/CEFACT/ebXML CCTS generally provides a methodology for describing reusable building blocks (“core components”) for business transactions, creating new business vocabularies, and storing core component definitions in central registries. ISO 11179, which is incorporated in the UN/CEFACT/ebXML CCTS, provides a naming convention for standardizing the structure and semantics of core components.